With special thanks to Monty Dart for researching this case from
contemporary newspaper reports.

It seems odd that the case of the last man to be executed in Wales and the first to be
condemned under the provisions of the Homicide Act of 1957 in the Principality
should attract so little public attention.Not even a photograph of Vivian Frederick Teed has been able to be
located.In 1958 in England and Wales
there were a total of nine death sentences of which just four were carried out,
including Teed’s.

24 year old Vivian Frederick Teed of Manor Road, Manselton, Swansea was charged with
the murder of 73 year old William Williams who ran the sub Post Office and
tobacconists shop which was part of his home at 870 Carmarthen
Road, Fforestfach in the
suburbs of Swansea on the evening of
Friday 15th November 1957.The crime was discovered the following
morning when post office employee 21 year old Margaret John could not open the
door and on looking through the letter box and saw Mr. Williams lying in the
hall.She called the police who forced
the door and discovered Mr. Williams’ badly beaten body, the skull fractured
from multiple hammer blows.Examination
of the crime scene revealed some size 6 bloody footprints in the hallway and
also a woman’s silk stocking under the body.

Teed was arrested three days later, initially denying any involvement in
the crime, claiming to have been with his girlfriend on the night in question.Police found
blood on his jacket, trousers and shoes.In a statement Teed said “I went to Fforestfach
on Friday night.I went to the Post
Office about seven.When I knocked at
the door Mr Williams answered it.I was
rather surprised, because I did not expect an answer. My idea was to find out
if anyone was in and then get in by the best possible means.The first thing I did was to push him
back.Then he started yelling and
struggling with me.There was a hammer
in my pocket which I had brought in case I had to force an entry. I knew that
if I struggled with him too long somebody would hear and come and investigate,
so I pulled the hammer out of my pocket and hit him.But instead of knocking him out as I
expected, he continued to struggle, so I kept on hitting him, so as to get away
as he had a hold on me.In the end, he
fell to the floor and dragged me down with him.Then he went quiet.He was still
groaning like, and I took some keys out of his pockets and tried them in the
Post Office door from the passage.I
left the keys in the keyhole.There were
a lot of keys, but I dropped some.I
went and tried all the drawers to see if there was any money.I had a look around like.He was still moving and groaning, and then he
started as if to get up.I didn’t want
him to see me, so I switched off the light and made for the door.Then I thought it would be better to leave
the light on so that someone would see it, probably a constable on the beat,
and go and check up.I wanted this so
that he wouldn’t lose too much blood.Then he started to get up again.He had been struggling to get up all the time, but he couldn’t get a
footing.It was too slippery in the
blood.The last thing I saw he was up on
his knees.Then I left by the front
door.I meant to leave the door open,
but there was someone outside posting a letter, so I slammed the door as anyone
would, leaving the place.That’s all I want to say.”

“I did tell someone about it at the café in Cwmbwria.I think his name is Ron. (it
was one Ronald Thomas Franklin Williams) I didn’t intend to do the old man any
harm. I didn’t even intend to touch him or do what I did.”Teed then admitted searching the Post Office
for money and also to wearing women’s silk stockings over his hands to avoid
leaving finger prints.

Teed was committed for trial by local magistrates on November 19th and
duly appeared at Cardiff before Mr. Justice Salmon on the 17th and 18th of
March 1958.He was prosecuted by W L
Mars Jones and E P Wallis Jones and defended by F Elwyn
Jones and Dyfan Roberts.

The headlines in the Western Mail
in its report of the proceedings stated “Man driven to kill postmaster of 73
says QC.”Teed’s
defence was that he was suffering from “impaired mental responsibility”, and
had been driven to the “terrible deed” by a force beyond his control, Mr. Elwyn Jones, Q.C. told the jury “The defence is not that
this man did not kill the unfortunate postmaster.That tragic fact is true.The defence is that when the accused did it
he was suffering from abnormality of the mind which impaired substantially his
mental responsibility for what he did when he killed the postmaster.”If the jury accepted this defence said Mr Elwyn Jones, they could not convict Vivian Teed of murder.
Quoting the 1957 Homicide Act he told them “The law says that in such a case
you must bring in a verdict of manslaughter.He may be a most dangerous man because of his abnormality” said Elwyn Jones.

Mr Mars Jones said that some “27 hammer blows were identified on Mr. Williams”,
In August, Teed had worked for three days in the Post Office. The alert was
raised by Miss John when she arrived at work on 16th November.The police were called and found a hammer,
the shaft broken, near the body, which was later traced back to Teed’s father, having been taken from his tool box.
Bloody footsteps could be seen leading to the side door.In court Detective Inspector L.D. Foster,
attached to the Cardiff Forensic Science Laboratory said that the pattern on
the heel of a shoe belonging to the man in the dock was identical to a print
found in the home of Mr. Williams.Foster said he had compared impressions of Teed’s
shoes with prints found on the linoleum in the dead man’s hallway.The pattern visible on a photograph was
identical with a tracing he had made of an impression from one of the
shoes.“In my opinion the impression on
the lino could very well have been made by this shoes”
he said.Mr Emlyn
Glyndwr Davies, principal scientific officer at the Forensic Science laboratory
said in evidence that blood samples had been taken in the hallway of the Post
Office and also from the jacket, trousers, shirt, shoes and socks worn by Teed.
“There were many bloodstains in the hall, and blood smears were on a key in the
door leading to the Post Office premises and on an exterior door.A mat in the hall was heavily bloodstained
and on it were fragments of bone.”

Donald Douglas James Teed, brother of the accused said that he hadn’t
seen his brother at home, he didn’t see him until 9.30 pm, in the local pub.

Mr Douglas Glaze, the hospital officer at Swansea Prison said that he
had kept notes in the hospital record book on Teed’s
behaviour whilst he was on remand at the prison.Consulting the book he noted that he had
described Teed as “a dangerously jealous man who needs careful watching.”On one occasion it was alleged that Teed had
told a visitor “I hit him because he was holding me, but I didn’t mean to
murder him.”His outbursts seemed to
coincide with visits from his girlfriend, Mrs Beryl Doyle.

Dr Eurfyl Jones, consultant psychiatrist at St
David’s Hospital, Caernarvon, said he regarded
Teed as a “psychopathic personality.”One of nine children brought up in Swansea, Teed had been
evacuated to a country village during the war.He joined the RAF when he was 19 but had soon gone absent without
leave.He had received a three year
prison sentence and later a 2 year sentence both for assaults prior to the
murder of Mr. Williams.

On questioning from Mr. Mars Jones, Dr. Jones said that he believed Teed
knew what he was doing, but he was suffering from “mental illness.”He considered that mental abnormality
substantially impaired twenty four year old Teed’s
mental responsibility when he killed Mr. Williams, he
further stated that his remorse for his actions was “imperceptibly shallow.”

Dr. M.A.B. Fenton, Senior Medical Officer in charge of Swansea, Cardiff, Bristol, Leyhill and Fairfield prisons said that
in his opinion Teed was not suffering from any abnormality of the mind.He disagreed with Dr. Eurfyl
Jones’ statement, saying that in his opinion Teed did not have a psychopathic
personality.

On Tuesday March 18th 1958 the jury of ten
men and two women deliberated for four and a half hours, twice failing to reach
a unanimous verdict whilst Teed waited in a cell for their decision. After two
and a half hours the Justice Salmon advised them “Your duty as citizens is to
give a verdict in accordance with the evidence and nothing else.”Having failed to agree the second time, hope
for Teed was raised.The Judge summoned
both prosecuting and defending counsel to his chambers.He then addressed the court, saying that he
had received a communication from the jury.This stated that in the view of one member of the jury the prosecution
had not proved that Teed had not substantially impaired responsibility for his
acts.He said that “the remainder of the
jury are quite convinced that the prosecution have proved this matter. It is my
duty to remind you that as far as impaired responsibility is concerned, it is
not for the prosecution to prove that accused had not diminished or impaired
responsibility.”

For Teed to receive the death sentence in 1958 the jury had not only to
be convinced that he killed the victim but also that the murder met one of the
five criteria specified by the previous year’s Homicide Act (see end note).

Forty minutes later the jury emerged for the third time. Teed was called
to the dock to hear their verdict: guilty of capital murder in the furtherance
of theft.He rose and gripped the rail
of the dock as Mr Justice Salmon, put on the black cap and pronounced sentence
of death, telling him he that he would “suffer death in the manner authorized
by law”, as the new wording of the death sentence had become since the passing of
the Homicide Act of 1957.As Teed was
taken to the cells he gestured and smiled to friends in the crowded public
gallery.

Teed was returned to Swansea prison and placed
in the Condemned Suite.Whilst there he
would have been examined by a panel of three Home Office appointed
psychiatrists and also been given an electro-encephalograph.Obviously no signs of insanity of brain
damage/malformation were found as this would have led to an automatic reprieve.

A 16 page petition for mercy signed by a thousand people was collected
and forwarded to the Home Secretary. Teed’s appeal
was heard in London by Lord Goddard,
the Lord Chief Justice sitting with fellow judges Hilbery
and Donovan and was dismissed on April 21st.The appeal judges did not find the evidence of mental illness
proven.On May 3rd the Home Secretary,
Richard Austen Butler, announced that there would be no reprieve and the law
would take its course three days later.

Only a dozen people and two policemen were standing outside the gates of
Swansea prison at 9 a.m. on Tuesday the 6th
May 1958.At that
moment Vivian Frederick Teed was facing his executioner, Robert Leslie Stewart
who was assisted by Harry Robinson. He was the third man to be hanged since the
passing of the 1957 Homicide Act.Under
a new rule, no notice of execution was posted on the main doors of the prison, this was to prevent a crowd gathering when
executions were carried out.

Teed had been executed for the murder of sub-postmaster William Williams
and one of those outside the prison gates that day was his namesake and
childhood friend, Mr. William Williams of Fforestfach,
who said “I have come here to have the satisfaction of knowing that justice has
been done.”

The Homicide Act of 1957.This
Act became law in March of 1957 and classified murders as capital or non
capital and also introduced the notion of diminished responsibility into
English law. Under the Act there remained five categories of murder for which
the death sentence was still mandatory, viz: